Windows 10 Pro build 1607 "Anniversary"

The 1607 build of Win 10 Pro (64 bit) has landed. I have liked Win 10 for non CAD/CAM workstations until now. It seems different on every hardware profile. My machines don't vary much across the HP spectrum of XW and Z class workstations and a few small form factor machines.

Some have gone in fine on their own, others need to be told to put the update in while others are painfully slow getting in, up and running. I currently have a machine that has tried to put the update in, and on the final reboot, hangs on a black screen with the chasing dots, seemingly forever. My guess? Video driver updates on NVIDIA cards. I can't tell that since I can't get in the O/S to see, but there seems to be no resolution to it on this machine. It just hangs there at the chasing dots screen. I assume until the O/S loads completely, there is no connectivity to search for drivers, and being Win 10, I need to get into the O/S first to call up a safe mode boot. That's what I'd like to do is boot with minimum drivers to see what's going on. Is there a way to do that or a way around this problem? Thank you.

Yeah the old F8 method won't work anymore. Instead, I think the best approach here is since the machine can't finish booting anyways, go to another working Windows 10 machine and create a recovery drive.

On the working machine, search for "Recovery" and choose the result for "Create a recovery drive". Click Yes to the UAC prompt.

Have a clean USB flash drive ready that is atleast 8 GB, preferably 32 GB. Plug it in and go through the wizard.

Then boot from it on the problem computer, choose your keyboard layout and then select Troubleshooting > Advanced options > Startup settings. This should allow you to boot the computer in safe mode.

Thanks. Working on a bigger problem on another machine right now, and I don't have a USB drive big enough to do what is suggested. That attempt will have to wait until Monday.

No, when I force the PC off and turn it back on, (which has "magically worked on another machine having the same problem), I get the blue Windows flag and the spinning dots. Then the flag goes away for about 5 seconds, as do the dots, and the dots return. That's it.

Thank you.

I don't know why Microsoft would take away the option to boot safely as we always have in the past.

Also, rather than wait for release updates to install automatically, I would just download the new iso, mount it on the system you want to upgrade, then run setup.exe. That is faster, you are more in control, and it is more likely to work without problems.

To answer some of your suggestions:
I have power cycled it MANY times now with the same result. That did work with another.
I tried to remote into as well, but the O/S isn't loaded far enough to let me in, at least cross-domain.

My hardware vendor has had a similar experience with Win 10 build 1607 installs, and suggested I remove network connectivity before booting the machine in question. I did that before giving the rescue disk a try, and now it states it is restoring to my previous Windows installation. I assume this is the Windows 10 equivalent of "last known good profile" of old versions of Windows. Now waiting to see if that loads as well.

At this point, I have to wonder, as I have found machines that have done the 1607 build update without intervention, if indeed, that is the design of this up date and it goes bad, sometimes, when forced? I really don't know at this point.

One of you suggested that I apply major release updates like this from the most current ISO, but I'm not sure how to acquire such things unless the media creation tool generates that most current file.

No, it should mean that it is returning to the previous build. Once it is back at that previous build, try the upgrade again manually by downloading the iso and running the setup.exe file like I mentioned earlier. That is much more reliable than the automatic upgrade.

Well, it didn't do it's thing last night, again, so I booted to the recovery drive I made yesterday on another Win 10 system. It doesn't allow me to do much, let alone boot into the PC with an F8 style, no driver prompt. It would not let me do:

Start up Repair
Windows Rollback
Reset the PC keeping my files and settings
I did NOT try a clean install as I still hope to preserve this installation.

I will download the current iso file and try and execute a reinstall from there. It's all I have left to try.

Now, speculating here, as to WHY is this one machine so stubborn to take this upgrade? My guess, and the only thing that makes this different, is it is the only machine in the building with more than 2 or 3 active domain profiles. 8-10 profiles if memory serves me. Other than that, it's a pretty basic Win 10 64 bit Pro/ Office 2013 vanilla machine. No CAD/CAM or specialty applications, no hot video cards or oddball hardware profiles, or anything like that.

No matter what I do, no matter I boot into, no matter what I try, it always end in a message saying it seems I am doing an upgrade, and I am stuck in that loop now. The upgrade files via Windows Update are just sitting there telling the installers there is an installation of an upgrade that is incomplete. I have to remove these files to run the repair and/or run the latest iso installer as an upgrade in place. Any other option is nuclear. Now what?

Everything now points to wireless input devices being the problem. Removing the dongle for the wireless keyboard/mouse combo helped quite a bit. That is, until I put it back on after the update to Win 10 was complete. Plugged it back in, rebooted, hangs at the dots. Unplug the dongle, goes right back in to the login screen, no problem. Leave it to Microsoft to have USB wireless connectivity be an issue in the 21st century.

That ain't all. Similar set up, similar 400 series machine, two monitors, two mice, two keyboards. One set of input devices is wired, one wireless. Never missed a beat on the Win 10 1607 build update. I put a wired mouse and keyboard on the rear USB ports, plugged in the dongle, booted. No problem. Rebooted again, hangs again until the wireless dongle is removed.

It is now clear the wireless input devices are an issue with this build of Win 10. On this particular box, the combo wireless mouse and keyboard is just not compatible at all. I will try and get a Logitech 320 combo that seems to be working on the other 400 series machine, but it looks like there needs to be a wired load of input devices for this build of Windows to boot with wireless input devices attached. If I remove the dongle at shut down and put it back in after the login screen loads, that works.

Conclusion? Just like Sun Java and Microsoft Virtual Machine, I figure. Or Apple and Adobe. A bleeping wireless input driver shuts the whole shooting match down because why? Looks like a Logitech/Microsoft developers' pissing match is going on...

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